Category Archives: Middle East

As thousands marched for freedom and liberation at the Free The People Immigration March, Sanctuary For All, on February 18th, Hussam Ayloush, Executive Director of CAIR LA (Council on American Islamic Relations) expressed gratitude for the unwavering support of Americans against the marginalization of Muslim communities through the Muslim ban of the Trump Presidency.

Chanting, “This is what democracy looks like,” I joined 25,000 of my fellow Americans in downtown San Jose, Calif., as part of the worldwide Women’s March on January 21 to assert our rights against the unacceptable presidency of Donald Trump. We were among the more than 2 million women, men and children who rallied in almost 700 marches in 50 states and 32 countries in the world’ s seven continents to demonstrate against the harrowing possibility of fascism taking root in the “land of the free and home of the brave.”

After a detailed selection process, the winners of the 2016 Arab American Book Awards have been selected and for the first time two books will receive the Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Award.

The two winning titles – Mona M. Amer and Germine H. Awad’s Handbook of Arab American Psychology and Moustafa Bayoumi’s This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror – are a direct reflection of the depth of the category that includes a wide range of submissions, from academic texts to memoirs and cookbooks.

DEARBORN HEIGHTS — The Arab American community has reached a boiling point with the Dearborn Heights Police Department following a number of incidents where residents claim they were arrested without justification.

This week, a video circulated on social media showing a local Arab American woman being subjected to excessive force and arrested in front of her home, while her children were present.

The woman, who wished to be addressed as “Lena”, told The AANews that she was gardening on Sunday, May 22, at around 2 p.m. when she noticed that police had pulled her husband over down the street from their home.

DEARBORN, Mich.– Pioneering social scientist and researcher Dr. Alixa Naff set out in 1962 to document the personal experiences of Arab immigrants to the United States with only her reel-to-reel tape recorder, a grant of $1,000, her blue Volkswagen Beetle nicknamed “the camel” and a team of graduate students to assist.

I agree with you that it’s a little ironic that we Sikhs are being mistaken for Muslims in the U.S. today, when the very idea behind our distinctive appearance was to distinguish us from Muslims and Hindus. I wish more people knew about the role of the Sikhs in the fight against the Mughal tyranny in 17th century India, and the sacrifices the Sikhs made to protect the common man’s right to practice their religion during Aurangzeb’s misguided attempts to convert the entire Mughal empire to Islam.

At a time when America was busy denouncing Donald Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from coming to the United States, Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill that restricts Arabs and Muslims’ entry into the country.

The bill excludes Iraqis and Syrians from the Visa Waiver Program even if they are also citizens of countries from which travel to the United States is allowed without pre-approval.

Kareem doesn’t fit the image of a Syrian refugee often seen in the media. Clean cut, dressed in well-fitting business casual with a young professional’s composure, he sits calmly in a Hamburg café and listens to Adele on his smartphone.

It’s hard to imagine that just this past August, he and his older brother Ghaith — like so many other young Syrian men — fled the country to escape conscription into Bashar al-Assad’s army.